Edited Hansard • Number 199
Wednesday, June 5, 2002
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A motion to adjourn the House under Standing Order 38 deemed to have been moved.
[Hansard Pages 12218-19]
Gun Registry
Mr. Garry Breitkreuz (Yorkton—Melville, Canadian Alliance): Madam Speaker, on May 2 the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice gave a most unsatisfactory answer to a direct question. The RCMP has provided reports documenting hundreds of thousands of errors in the gun registry. I again ask my question. How can a garbage collection system like the minister is running be of any benefit to the police?
Last week the parliament secretary contradicted the documented evidence from his own department and the RCMP by claiming that 99% of all firearms were correctly registered and 99% of firearms licences correctly issued.
On May 22 the justice department, in response to one of my access to information requests on error rates in the gun registry, stated:
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The error rate for applications received up to July 18, 2001, was 90% of a total of 362,375. In addition to errors detailed in Appendix A, 42% of firearms registration applications contain errors in the firearms description, in comparison to the Firearms Reference Table...The sum of the errors exceeds the number of applications received because the application is only counted once even though it may contain multiple errors. |
On April 9, 2002, in response to our access to information request, the RCMP provided the cold, hard statistics used to calculate the justice department's 90% plus 42% error rate in firearms applications. As of July 18, 2001, the RCMP's Canadian firearms registry had received 362,375 firearms registration applications. The RCMP provided a two page document listing 60 different types of errors. Amazingly this RCMP document records a total of 970,647 errors.
Here are some of the more common firearms application errors the RCMP documents: 226,024 applications required the firearms owner's licence numbers; 88,886 applications were awaiting payment while the funds for 23,211 applications were not acceptable; 48,282 applications did not have the firearms make, while for another 40,528, the make was invalid; 79,456 had an invalid model description; 71,539 required a client match; 59,640 had address errors; 56,374 required the calibre for the firearm; 34,830 did not have the number of shots; 18,434 did not have a serial number; 16,313 did not have the barrel length; and 20,978 had not been signed.
The minister and the parliamentary secretary would have us believe that in the 11 months they have fixed almost a million errors in these 362,000 applications and have stopped clients from making similar errors on the other 3.4 million firearms applications they received since. In another 11 months, through another access to information request, as has been happening continually over the last six or seven years, we will find that is not true. The minister's claims stretch--
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The Acting Speaker (Ms. Bakopanos): The hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada.
Mr. Paul Harold Macklin (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, Lib.): Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to provide an update on the firearm registration process and to reinforce the government's commitment to public safety. We have become accustomed to the hon. member's frequent allegations about this public safety initiative and I intend to respond to this one as we have with all others.
The hon. member is alleging that the firearms registry is of limited use to the police. Let us first be clear that this public safety program is much more than a gun registry. It is a multi-facetted, practical approach that addresses the prevention of firearm death, injury and crime deterrence. That is why Canada's law enforcement community recognizes and supports the firearms program as an important public safety initiative.
In its testimony on Bill C-15B we heard the law enforcement community reaffirm its support for this program and its essential crime fighting tools. The Canadian Police Association and the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police outlined the significant public benefits available through this program, which combines the screening of the applicants, tracking of firearms and minimum mandatory sentencing to help deter, prevent and prosecute firearm crime in Canada.
Regarding the questions of the hon. member about errors in the system, I want to emphasize that errors reported to the Canadian Firearms Centre to date represent a tiny fraction of the firearm documents that have been issued.
As recently as April 27 of this year, 99% of the firearms in the Canadian Firearms Registry system were correctly registered according to identification and classification as required under law. Also, 99% of the licences were correctly issued to the right person living at the address stated with the appropriate privilege and safety training. There may be a small number of entry errors for which we have no statistics but when these are reported, they are dealt with promptly in co-ordination with the client. Firearms owners should verify the information on their firearm documents and contact us immediately at 1-800-731-4000 to report any anomalies and have the situation rectified.
There are currently 2.1 million individuals in the firearms database and firearms owners have been sending in their registration applications in unprecedented numbers. As with any other high volume operation, it is only natural to expect a small degree of entry error. That is why we remain vigilant and have recently made some improvements to further minimize the potential for error.
Over the past few months, the Canadian firearms program has completely restructured the registration process and implemented rigorous measures to ensure the integrity of the information. When the personalized registration application is returned for processing, the form is scanned including the bar code that identifies the licence holder. Manual data entry is eliminated which minimizes the potential for error.
Unquestionably, this program has been beneficial to the Canadian community at large. We believe it is an excellent program and it is working well. We believe that the errors that the
Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: Madam Speaker, they are errors that have not been corrected. I will take one of the alleged facts that has been used here and that is the 99% success rate with regard to the addresses.
As of February 21 of this year, the department reported it had mailed out 1,625,915 envelopes to licensed firearm owners as part of its free registration program. However we also found out that 38,629 of those envelopes had been returned to sender by Canada Post Corporation. So much for the claim that 99% of the licensed firearms owners are living at the right address. They have lost track of these owners despite the fact that there is a penalty of years in jail if within one month they do not--
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The Acting Speaker (Ms. Bakopanos): The hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice.
Mr. Paul Harold Macklin: Madam Speaker, I think it is clear that the member has stated before the House that the data he used in most of his intervention was really based on July 2001. The statistics that I referred to are statistics that are up to date and represent great improvements that we have made within the system.
The hon. member represents a party that has done everything possible within the House to stop the streamlining of this process and the making of this process more efficient. This was by the stalling and filibustering on Bill C-15B which finally forced the government to enter into time allocation to effectively bring it to a conclusion and advance it to the other place.
We are very pleased that we have now done so. It is now in the other place and we will see more benefits accruing to the legitimate firearms owners in Canada through that streamlining process. We look forward to having many registrations that will go through without error.
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